Hey, so we got a trojan horse
ag.ny.gov/press-release/2026/attorney-general-james-sues-game-developer-promoting-illegal-gambling-through

February 26, 2026 - 04:35 UTC

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I Graduated from high school by presenting an essay about Videogames being beneficial instead of harmful, that it could be used as a helpful teaching tool too.

This is still the same stereotyped argument that I heard 10 years ago when I made that essay...
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I made the case for it over twenty years ago, explaining how the games I played teach pattern recognition and how it could train your mind to think strategically about things. "Once you recognize this enemy pattern, now you can plan around it."

... adults did not like it then, either.
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I was born in the 80s and grew up as a kid in the 90s. It goes back to my childhood too. The violent video game argument.

I'm sorry if you can hear that sound right now. It's just me rolling my eyes at these fools.
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it's that exact repeated stereotyped argument that inspired me to write 2 essays and make a presentation fighting against it in both HS and college.

I graduated high school in 2018.
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...they just HAD to cram a stupid long-disproven assumption in there, didn't they
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Grand Theft Auto 3 is at it again
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garghhhh, this shit again? i thought we moved past this already wtf
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No because it’s easy
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I know right? could have sworn this talking point died a decade ago
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So its the same ole "violent games" crap
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Once again, this is not about protecting children and sneaking in the whole "video game cause violence" is the cherry on top.

Parents should be the ones monitoring their kids, not the government or corporations.

This is Project 2025 in action.
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We get more gun control for fictional material than we do in reality.
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Why do they always have to sneak poison into these things?
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They didn't say violent games cause violence, they said they desensitize you to violence, which is absolutely correct
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This has never been reliably demonstrated either.
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"So, this is how you found out you were bootlicking by repeating propaganda."
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"Help fuel the dangerous epidemic of gun violence"

Pretty clearly saying it's one of the causes.

There is also just as much research proving that what you said is not correct. These video games are also appropriately rated. If you're not monitoring what your children play, that's on you.
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Can you present evidence for your claim?
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Yeah, its the video games. Not the government executing people on TV, or anything.
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trust me i play mortal kombat and once nearly fainted seeing my own blood in a medical context let alone people getting actually gored

video games don't do that
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I play cult of the lamb yet I still think cults are bad
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Same shit, different wording. Just cause it's coming from a democrat that the Trump goverment have gone after for zero reason, doesn't make the argument any less bullshit.
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Only if you fail to differentiate fiction from reality

Despite how much Payday I've played, I've only seen officers with guns twice in my life and each was terrifying

Maybe it's different in America where you see that daily. THAT would desensitise you to people walking about with killing devices
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rube detected
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I can kill literally thousand pixels in a game.
Play wargames where you commit genocide as a 'strategic plan'.
Yet I never felt in real life to do or support either of those things. In fact I cannot even stomach hearing about such things in the news.
So, no. That is BULLSHIT.
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No it's not, every actual study done on it says that's not true. You just decided some shit was real based on vibes because you're dumb, which shall explains your fashion choices.
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No, it's absolutely bullshit.

And there are scientific studies to prove it, including this series of three done at Western Michigan University: wmich.edu/news/2016/11/36296
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MURDER SIMULATORS
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Now there's a face I haven't seen in a long, long time.
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Incidentally, I always found it baffling that any amount of gamers fell for rightwing bullshit when rightwingers have always been anti-gamer. Especially since Jack Thompson had been the lolcow enemy of gamers for years.

And yet here we are, a Dem state AG doing the same thing. Thanks Dems
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What the hell? Where did that come from? 'Gambling mechanic stuff is bad!

Also, we should totally go after violence in video games even though it has be scientifically proven that it has no indication that they contribute to real world violence'
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Epic games is doing this stuff behind the curtains
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Well I played Troy: Total War and now I have a half build wooden horse in my yard!
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The gambling stuff is valid concern, but this violent game thing is stupid and should be laughed out of the court room.
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Imagine going on this crusade against valve and not the western arcade industry.
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This bullshit might've been cute back in the early 90s when we weren't suffering through daily mass shootings.

Now it's just pathetic.
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What fucking gambling?

Tf2 and Csgo crates?
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Yes, except some of the skins could apparently by sold through Steam for real-world money? Didn't stop to read all the details on that part because it was 1am and I was going to sleep, but *very* big if true.

RMT just is not great.
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Funny how violent video games are available all over the world, but only one country has more annual mass shootings than days in the year. It's almost like there are deeper societal issues at play that have nothing to do with videogames.
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And it's like "oohhh we can't perfectly restrict access to guns" yeah neither can we in Canada and yet we manage somehow
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We're ALL trying to find the guy who made gambling and firearms the only revenue in this country
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Once again, gov't fucking everything up because parents refuse to parent.
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Every time
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This really comes of as the rich just mad they won that Rothchild lawsuit. Like why go after Valve of all people for this and not the hundreds of Gacha games or Blizzard, the guys with a game aimed at teens with the same systems.
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For Fuck's sake.
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oh god damn it...
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fuck trojan horses

can't believe anything anymore without some trojan horse making it look like a motte-and-bailey fallacy argument
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I'm not surprised
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wait, we're still on the video game violence thing?
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Gun Violence existed long before Video Games @newyorkstateag.bsky.social
Valve is hell of a lot better than @ubisoft.com , #ElectronicArts , @microsoft.com , Meta, #ActivisionBlizzard, #Nintendo , Tencent and NetEase.
Go after them.
Gambling in games must be eradicated, but your sights are off.
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The US would rather rape a whole generation of children than not make guns so easy to have.
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Ah, I'm all for killing lootboxes but not either this bullshit attached.
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That's the thing, killing video games is their main goal. They just cover it in a sugar that everyone agrees with so you don't think about it too hard. This is how politicians in America always work.
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The nerve the pin video games as the source of young people being numb to gun violence and not all the weekly school/mass shootings that happen
Our government's lack of actual response to stopping these shootings is what's causing the numbness. This has been happening even before video games ffs
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I'm all for the going after loot boxes/gatcha. I think those are absolutely gambling and should be banned. But that rider is super ick.
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How’s about leaving the daka in our games and taking them off the streets instead?
As an allegedly mature adult, I don’t confuse big guns in fiction with big guns irl.
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Hey could we ban the gambling without the moral panic, please
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didn't steam recently do something that cut the knees out from under the cs:go gambling scene? i wonder if that'll change anything.
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People act like valve held them at gunpoint to buy cases lol, gambling is very much a user problem
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Look... I don't like the lawsuit but let's not act like gambling platforms don't use dark patterns to get vulnerable people hooked on their bullshit.
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By your logic: Drug addicts are their own problem when they get addicted from hospital approved medicines, right? If you provide the service that is gambling, then its gambling and causing a gambling problem.
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In reality - this suit is about NEITHER; it's about CONTROL.
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Can we all agree that any legislation that uses an argument that the Simpsons mocked 20 years ago should immediately disqualify it?
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I take back whatever i said about the guards that let the horse in im an idiot aswell
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This is sadly true, I once saw lasagna on my screen and I had to be rushed to the hospital because I had eaten my screen :'(

For reasons it's a joke
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Naw this is HELLA relatable tho πŸ˜”
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I feel like people are missing that this is really a sideways action to demonize violent games - again - pretending, again, that they cause real world violence despite studies to the contrary.
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Tipper Gore ass bullshit
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steam lawyers are robust enough to punch trough this shit they aint going down without a fight
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In case the quote gets detached because I know how blue checks love that little maneuver (:
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Out of *all* the scummy AAA game companies out there, and she decides to attack one of the most well-loved ones that don't treat their customers like metaphorical cattle to be milked?

Just goes to show how utterly out of touch the majority of Democrat politicians are...
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This is a follow-up confirmation that that this has been captured on the wayback machine for posterity because I like being an annoying little shit to bad faith shit-stirrers :3c

web.archive.org/web/20260226040823/https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2026/attorney-general-james-sues-game-developer-promoting-illegal-gambling-through
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it's been over 30 years and they're still trying to sneak this in
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And in case that goes down, here's an alternative archive: archive.ph/agKbU
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Gambling bad.Gun violence? That is what age ratings are for, so that "young minds" don't develop by that. Also that is what parents are for!

But yes, valve is an interesting case. They do a lot of things right, but they also promote gambling.

I don't play CS2 but it's still an interesting problem.
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the 90's called, they want the rhetoric back that they borrowed from the 70's
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hey the 90's called they want their video game fearmongering back
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I believe she is up for reelection. Boy am I glad to be an NY resident.
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Well, I'm more surprised there's all sorts of websites springing up about about gambling on random things, yet their more worried about a video gaming publisher...That's like trying to blow a candle out saying how dangerous it is, while there's a forest fire happening!
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I hate how it’s videos games fault but not having resources to mental health/them going into these groups that promote violence.
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Oh wow, better fear monger about some old lady blah blah blahing and let valve do whatever they want in this case.
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all american politicians know are scape goats. point at this, point at that, never a real solution, always a distraction. not a single mainstream politician is truly on our side. its far past time for things to change.
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i love a good motte-and-bailey
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I fucking hate these vIdEo GaMeS cAuSe ViOlEnCe ppl because they’re making nonce assumptions

Being violent in a FICTIONAL setting has nothing to do with being violent in REALITY. Because the stakes are NOT THE SAME.

Real people don’t respawn. Virtual characters tend to do that. It’s not the same.
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I grew up with bootlegged Doom WODs and I ain't ever shot nobody

At 20 I jammed COD, Titanfall, Halo and Gears of War and I ain't never shot nobody

In my 40s I now play far less shooters because my eyes and reflexes are slower but my KD-Ratio is still 0/0

So how bout we ban guns and not games?
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Also, side thought

Isn't the UK suing Valve for scummy business practices already? A valid suit for charging devs what, 30% of sales?
Doesn't this come off as a piggyback suit attacking Valve whose already busy but using a 1990s debunked excuse?

Like, Valve ain't the good guy but neither is she
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Ah, great. I'm throwing out my 2026 bingo card because on top of everything else, we now have genderbent Jack Thompson.
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Ah, someone wants to fuck around and try to be the next Jack Thompson and are unaware they're about to find out what we did to him
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It always is... because they never do this to actual gambling apps.
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Jack Thompson energy imo.
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Been a loooong time since we've had this discourse reach policy levels

Millennials feeling so nostalgic right now
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